Leaving public Cloud Storage
Leaving public Cloud Storage
Hello everyone,
I am currently planning to leave Google Drive with all my data (currently "only" 90GB).
I like the idea of being able to access my data from everywhere though.
Due to how ISPs work where I live, I don't have a fixed IP, except I pay a monthly fee for that and become a "business client".
What do I need besides a NAS (or a Pi with an attached external HDD) to store and access my data?
I currently only have a Laptop and a Pi 3B + WD Elements I already use for Plex.
Plex has the "luxury" of auto-configuring my router and somehow mapping its IP so I can "just connect" from everywhere.
Is there something like that for storage?
What security measures should I consider?
Synology NAS + Tailscale
1You didn't say why you wanted to remove your data from the cloud (leaving Google is a very good reason though) but I wanted to offer another perspective. I don't like opening up my homefirewall for anything so I have a VPS to host my data in the cloud. It gives me control while still allowing access to my data from anywhere. Kind of a halfway point between self hosting and using public cloud services.
1Yes. Run NextCloud on a cheap VPS. File access, online office suite, address book, calendar and a plethora of other applications, and no need to manage hardware or networking.
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DynDNS with wireguard if you can port forward or tailscale if you can't or are behind CGNAT.
1This. Can be stressfull as wireguard clients update the dns of the endpoint only when the tunnel is restarted. I use a vps inbetween my reverse proxy hat home (internet - vps wg - local wg vm - local reverse proxy)
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Plex has the "luxury" of auto-configuring my router and somehow mapping its IP so I can "just connect" from everywhere.
Let's be reasonable. If you're going to be away from home I'm sure you don't need all of your content "at a moments notice".
If you do you wherever you are that's you're new home!
In this instance my advice would be to get a small SBC or RasPi + some external storage which you could load up + rotate your content when you travel.
For me I'd add a "travel router" which provides:
- Expansion of number of devices that can access the internet(hotels)
- Minimization of security + privacy configs across devices as it can be setup on one - the router
- Access to SBC/Raspi(and my content) on the LAN
1The NAS can do almost everything you need except offsite C2.
For example Synology ((so far I only had these)) has a built-in DynDNS service that gives you a subdomain you can access the NAS through without extra steps. I bet all the other NAS brands have this built-in as well. Whichever you pick, definitely have 2FA enabled. Also if you can setup your storage pool as btrfs that's great too.As others pointed out, you need an offsite copy on some C2 provider or a friend's NAS or whatever. (if you've really no budget, you could get a bunch on free subscriptions (dropbox etc.) and split up the backups between them).
The NAS will have an app that already supports a whole lot of providers + things like external USB drive and you can setup automatic backup there.1I haven't tried it, but a small SBC/PC with Homedrive.io. It's NextCloud + their own trickery to not have to bust ports.
Software is free, and you can even buy a NUS or Pi with the software pre-installed if that's more comforting to you.
1Depending how important your data is, you may want to consider still backing some of it up to the cloud. You're not going to get the same level of protection with a NAS that you will on the cloud.
I have a decently sized NAS which stores my Plex media and Nextcloud data and will backup Nextcloud daily to Backblaze B2. This way if anything happens to my NAS, I still have my irreplaceable data protected.
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